WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1293 - The Smothers Brothers

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Recently, Marc talked with television historian David Bianculli about The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and the important place it holds in American culture. Talking with Tom and Dick Smothers themselves, Marc finds that the brothers are as surprised as anyone that they left such an indelible mark. Starting with an act that grew out of the folk music scene, Tom and Dick talk about the evolution of their variety show, how they wound up locking horns with the network that ultimately fired them, and why they're getting back on stage after 12 years of retirement. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fuck nicks? Happy New Year. Happy New Year to all the WTF family. Everyone in and of it. Everyone listening to it. I want to say, I don't really want to say i don't i don't really want to say happy new year but i'm gonna say it because that's what we say here it comes how about that hey it's it's it's january 1st yeah here it comes here it fucking comes man i hope you're okay i hope you had a nice time i hope you didn't get covet if you did get covet i hope you're getting through it

hope you got your booster shot because despite what dum-dums say, it seems to help everybody. But yeah, so it's 2022. And today we have the Smothers Brothers on. I sat with both Smothers Brothers. I just got lucky. It was an interesting thing because we did the episode with Cliff Nesteroff and David Bianculli. It was episode 1278. It's called Canceled Comedy. And we talked to Cliff about how people have been complaining since the beginning of modern comedy that you can't say anything anymore. And every time it winds up not being true. And then David Bianculli talked about a situation where two comedians were actually canceled, fired, actually, because of the things they were saying, things that were bothering the TV network that aired their show.

That was the Smothers Brothers. And after we had that conversation with David, we were in touch with the brothers representatives. Tom and Dick live in different parts of the country, but it turned out at the beginning of December, they were both going to be at Tom's home in Northern California. So it made sense for me to hop on the plane, get up there to Sonoma County to have a talk with him, which I did. It was great. It was great to meet Tom and Dick's mothers and a real

honor. So that's coming up for you. It's coming up for you. Whoa, hold on, hold on. Guitar guitar falling hold on the fuck happened here how the fuck did this happen jesus fucking christ anyway heading into the new year for me look i didn't make a big deal out of anything i didn't make a big deal out of the holidays i didn't i a big deal out of the holidays. I just let them go. I cooked some nice dinner. I hung out with my friend Kit. I did stuff, but I didn't do anything, really. I just hunkered down or did comedy and whatever. But it was not a great few days. I got

to be honest with you. The last few days were not a great few days. A lot of revelations came by virtue of the way they usually come to me through panic, fear, concern, worry. But both of my cats got sick at the same time. Buster starts puking, bad puking, like nothing in him anymore puking. I'm like, what the fuck is happening? And all of a sudden, fucking little Sammy, simple Sammy is fucking puking all over the place. He can't hold his shit down. I'm like, what the fuck happened? I don't know what happened.

What did they both eat? It's got to be related, right? All this to say, I am so happy I don't have children. I am definitely not the guy for children. I just don't have the patience. I'm mad at these cats for being sick. I'm mad at myself for having cats. I feel

terrible for them. There was so much fun and love and they were so cute and all that just goes away. And then my entire life for some reason becomes destabilized. It's ridiculous. And I'm crying like an idiot. You get attached to these animals, or at least you have a relationship with them that is fairly consistent until they fucking get sick. So that was my new year. The revelation was I've got to put things into perspective. I've been through the loss of cats and people before. That's not even what's happening here.

But the catastrophic thinking, it just opens up to everything. Everything. The future. The world. As things are now. Me. My life. My fucking predicament, everything is hinging on

these cats acting like they're supposed to and not being sick. Got to turn that around. Thank God I didn't have kids. And my heart goes out to you if you got them. I can't imagine if I had two fucking kids in the house throwing up everywhere, but at least kids can talk if they're old enough to talk or you can get some sense of things. You can't make a fucking cat eat. Can't make a cat drink. Can't make a cat do anything. God, happy new year.

Is that what I, that's what I meant to say. Happy new year. We'll see what happens. Sammy seems to be out of the woods. I don't know what's going on with Buster. My God, though. Just the cortisol. To think that I dealt with this every day with Monkey and LaFonda for years.

The panic. The cortisol. The fucking like, is he dying? I don't have the temperament. I'm not loving enough to be like, it's okay. It's okay. And then all of a sudden Buster kind of turned around a little bit today. But I really have to fucking relax and focus.

Or else I'm like, come on, let's get, let's do the fluids. Let's do the fluids. And another thing that happened, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with a movie. I don't even know where it came from. I'd never heard of it. It's called The Visitors. Ilya Kazan.

All right. It's a movie that was made in 1972. Now, Ilya Kazan, Splendor in the Grass, A Face in the Crowd, Baby Doll, East of Eden, On the Waterfront, Viva Zapata, A Streetcar Named Desire, Panic in the Street. I mean, this guy was a big Hollywood

director. I think he named names as well, but that's another story. But the thing is, this movie, by that big Hollywood director was made in 1972, The Visitors. Now, I'm a 70s movie guy. You know, 70s movies, antiheroes, darkness, you know, grainy, raw. I never heard of this movie. Maybe because it was made by Elia Kazan. I don't know. Because he's not really a 70s movie maker but this movie is odd it's james wood's first movie but this is 1972 and it's taken from the same story that casualties of war is taken from incident on hill 192 from the new yorker magazine became the book casualties of war since 1972 and chris kazan this is the son of Elia Kazan, writes this movie based on the same story that Casualties of War is based on with Michael J. Fox, a De Palma film, Sean Penn.

Shot on 16 millimeter film at the family home in Connecticut. It is a menacing, dark, morally challenging movie. It is one of the best quote unquoteunquote 70s movies i've ever seen i've never heard of it if i wasn't watching the criterion channel or looking at elia kazan's movies out on there and i'm just like the visitors what could that be 1972 my question is how what was the story behind this movie and i'm trying to reach out to the family. I just want to know what the backstory is on this movie because Chris Kazan passed away at some point.

He didn't live very long. In his 50s, I think. The writer. He only wrote this one thing, I believe. Elie Kazan was the great American film director who shot this thing on 16 millimeter in the family home with James Woods. You know, this dark fucking story about a guy who is living at his girlfriend's father's place in the main house. The old man's down in the guest house. He's a vet from World War II,

and he's a writer of Western stories, and they're not married, and they have a kid. And the backstory on him is that he was the guy that turned in the guys in his unit who kidnapped a teenage Vietnamese girl, took her as a prisoner, and raped her. He didn't. He turned them in. took her as a prisoner and raped her. He didn't. He turned them in. And two of those guys come up to visit after they get out of jail.

That's the setup. And it all takes place in this fucking house or on the property. I can't even be, I cannot stop thinking about the movie. But I want to know, what was it like? Did Chris Kazan say,

I've got this screenplay? And Ilya, they were just sitting at home. He's like, let's just shoot it here. How did it happen? This fucking thing is a masterpiece of 70s cinema. And I have never fucking heard of it or seen it. But I don't know much. Maybe I just missed it.

But I'm telling you right now, it's there. It's on the Criterion channel. It's gnarly. And it is just a devastating, intense movie of that period i want to know the backstory i've got no information and i'm fascinated if anyone knows the book that it's in please tell me okay man so look the smothers brothers how can you tell them apart how can you tell them apart that's the big question so here's what you do if you want to keep track of who's who in this talk you'll hear dick jump in around one minute

into the talk to the talk you're about to hear and he refers to his brother as tommy and then he talks about tommy by name a few more times so you can keep the voices straight at that point. All right. All right. That's my that's my my primer, my helpful announcement. I also want to mention they're planning live performances this year. Dates are up in the air right now because of covid, but we'll let you know when they announce the schedule. And thanks to the folks at Northern California Public Media where we recorded this episode. This is me talking to Dick and Tommy Smothers up in Sonoma. I think I'd rather get the clap than COVID, you know? At least I had some fun.

That's right. With an experienced person. You remember when it happened, at least. Right? Maybe. Sometimes they get you while you're sleeping. What I was going to be honest with you about was that it's not too easy to find

the old stuff on YouTube. And you can find everything on YouTube. Are you guys managing that? Did you guys tell it? Did you shut it down? No, we're all over the place. Some people grab stuff from... From their TV sets.

Yeah, from the TV sets and videos. You say, Mother, Brother, God, mention one of our pieces or the Comedy Hour, then the whole litany of threads come up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most of the stuff from the early show was

we weren't that good. Later on, our act got better. It was hard to – we're not good at doing other people's written lines. Well, that was a problem early on, right? Yeah, still a problem. Tommy never could follow directions. It's nothing personal. Yeah.

Actually, he agreed with the right-wing assholes, but he couldn't follow directions. So he said, it's easier to be a liberal. I think I'll be a liberal. There's a little more room. There's more room. Yeah, to make mistakes. It's kind of a gentler way.

Well, I thought you were pretty tight. The one thing I did watch was that first Jack Benny appearance. And it was like, that was, it was so funny. That was funny, yeah. It was so tight. And I forget because I'm, like, I was born in 63, right? i i always had a tremendous amount of admiration for all the old timers growing up and jack benny was like to to take the time that he took to get a laugh it was unbelievable for his timing just stretching it out and you did that too though you guys did it they were the

same style one time jack benny for the people who don't know what he did, something would happen, and he would just do nothing, but they'd take a 180-degree turn away with no change of expression and focus. Tommy would still be waiting for him to come back. So they had this game sometimes. It was wonderful. Yeah, it was like a three-beat turn. It was like almost a three-beat take all the way around.

Then the hand comes up. Johnny Carson really admired Jack Benny a lot. I know, yeah. There was a little bit of his, he used those little slow head turn takes. The takes. Yeah, his timing was wonderful. I was watching you last night, uh i texted my producer i said you know bobcat goldthwait is doing tommy well i mean that like they're you know that sort of like

almost like excited childlike you know timing i mean he goes a little overboard but it's still that same kind of a thing there was a like a an excitement a sort of of innocence to it, a seeming innocence to it. At one time, we had 50, 51 years. Yeah. But in the middle there, I said, you know, I was one of the first yelling comedians. Exactly. Mom likes you, bitch. You, oh yeah?

Exactly. That's what I mean. I could see it in him, you know. I could see that. Well, Don Novello, Father Guido Sanducci from San Antonio he always used that accent yeah and he's a little dyslexic like I am yeah and so it gives you when you're talking in accent you have to search for some words yeah so it gives you an opportunity your brain to come up with the thing and yeah mine was going to be slow-witted, which was really, I was searching. Yeah, and it was mistaken for great timing.

So he was really not. Your timing is immaculate. It's perfect. He just didn't know what he was going to say. Yeah. But you have to not know what you're going to say with a certain degree of talent because there's no self-pity, no pity. Yeah. They would wait for Tommy, and he would be very positive about whatever he arrived at

when he arrived at it. And that's what a little kid does. Oh, sure. That's right, Mom. No, I didn't have a cookie. The cat ate the cookie. I took the cookie from the cat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bad cat. You know, Mark, after we did some theater, after we were fired. Yeah. Oh, after CBS. Wait, 60, yeah. Bad cat. You know, Mark, after we had done, we did some theater after we were fired. Yeah. Oh, after CBS. Late 60s. 1969, yeah, late 60s. That was about 10 years into our career, 20 years into our career. And so we did some dinner theater, and then did a Broadway show.

But during that time, I started watching daytime television, which was, I was seeing a lot of Laurel and Hardy and Abbott Costello. television, which was, I was seeing a lot of Laurel and Hardy and Abbott Costello. And I kept noticing that since we were turning out to be a team with guitar and bass, but I noticed that it was, the real strength of their act was the straight man. And with Bud Abbott was just incredibly wonderful straight man, just so mean and unforgiving. And without him, but Lou Costello had just been an overweight. Yeah, sweaty guy, spinning around.

Five minutes and you're done with him. Yeah. And Dickie and I said, straight man, I said, I was looking at how much in the conversation and the routine the straight man did most of the talking. And the same way with Rowan and Martin. Sure. So Dickie's more and more to the point.

Yeah, yeah. Couldn't shut him up. But it made a huge difference for the comedian not to be carrying everything all the time. Yeah. And then I would start mugging and doing things that certain parts of the career that I was kind of embarrassed about. You know, the best things that happen in medical breakthroughs are accidents. So many things scientifically, philosophies, are accidents.

And we accidentally... I think LSD was an accident. Yes, it was for something else. And birth control was to get the women pregnant. Really? Yes, it was. I didn't know that. Yeah, because as soon as you stopped taking the pills, you were pregnant.

Oh, I see. Yeah. I wasn't, and you weren't, but my wife was. Yeah. That was my second child. Anyway, we accidentally were doing improv before we knew the word. We didn't know it. All we said is we'd make things up.

At that time, Nichols and May were the hottest things in show business. Great, yeah. They were from Second City, helped build the whole improv thing that fed Saturday Night Live, all the improvisational comedians.

Yeah. They were actors, not one-liners like Sure. Joan Rivers. Not joke slingers. They were actors because you're thinking

on your feet. Right. And if you realize all life is improv. Of course. I took dance. When people came in for the first time to a dance studio and said, I don't know how to dance.

You're walking, aren't you? You're walking with rhythm. Interesting. You do. You've been dancing your whole life. When you started, though, you started as musicians in earnest, right? I mean, it was- We wanted to be a- I wanted to be a band leader.

You wanted to be a band leader? Yeah, Tommy the band leader. And my first band was in fifth grade. Yeah. And there was a guy who played clarinet. One kid played piano. Yeah. And I played guitar.

Right. But mostly in only two keys, C and G. Open strings. I made everybody, now the clarinet's written in B flat, so it's kind of hard for them to play in C. But I was still the leader. Avantgarde uh jazz music early on but so but because i have not talked to like i've talked to people that were a few guys from your generation from chicago from new york but i never i have no sense of you know the bay area scene i have no sense of the folk scene

so when you guys first started to perform i guess you had a third guy that you perform with but it was sort of straight up kind of like getting on the folk bandwagon right no it's not bad way again it started Tommy could do that we started we were going to college in San Jose State yeah so we're basically locals yeah and Kingston trio had just made a king to a league Tom Dooley but that was the the folks started with the Weavers right and didn't catch on

okay they hit songs Brown Eyes right so the Kingston Trio were the ones they did it they put it over the top

yep and all the and the kids liked them yep and that's what inspired you yeah what was so good

we were our first songs in high school and college Shaboom but we were singing whatever songs were popular songs. But when folk music came in, I said, wow, there's a story here. There's a story to one of the songs.

Pretty soon, we'd learn part of the song, and I'd make up introductions every night. Every night, a new introduction. Finally, Dickie said, who wasn't talking at all, just singing, the best singer. But Dickie would say, why don't you repeat that funny thing you said last night? I said, well, they'll know. That's not fair to repeat yourself. I just believe that you could sing a song over and over again. Right.

Seem dishonest. And they didn't notice. Of course. What, did you think it was the same people? I was i was not a smart person i told you we were very naive we didn't know what we were doing well as a comic i know that feeling like they're gonna you know like but it's in your head that's all the same people you're just saying like i already said this but they don't know well i understand that we didn't know what we didn't know we yeah we weren't in showbiz we're students he worked at a gas station.

I worked at fast food. What do we know? Where'd you, you grew up in where? Outside L.A.? Where'd you grow up? San Fernando Valley in Redondo Beach. So you're real L.A. guys, basically. Real kind of.

Until we were valley guys. Valley guys, yeah. Redondo Beach and. Moved around. Moved around. But it was all Southern California. And I went to San Jose State. He went the army and uh Fort Ord yes sir so and then when he got out and went to state and we both started singing there a little bit had a little group you you

come from military family yeah West Point oh you're down West Point 29 and really lost him in the war and World War II yeah we were we were in the Philippines, Dickie and I. In May of 41, we were evacuated with the Army dependents. Six months before Pearl Harbor, they knew something was happening. So that's how we settled from Winston-Salem, where he was, North Carolina. Your dad? Yeah. And to Southern California, where our mom's parents were.

Oh, wow. And so she worked at Lockheed making airplanes for the – and Grandpa worked at Lockheed. The war effort is a big thing. That's where we grew up. That's where you – so you guys really were brought up in it. And how old were you when your dad passed? I was about five or – He was a prisoner of war until 44, late.

He fell with the Philippines with 60,000 other troops. And so they were prisoners of war, very inhumane. Oh, my God. So how did you – did you find that out much later uh we knew we were in military school uh in san bernardino yeah we had behavior problems yeah you had him yeah anyway you know you get a telegram you get a telegram now you could actually watch your watch your guys in the battlefield. Sure.

So instant. And we found out he would – we knew he was a prisoner of war. And mom did. Yeah. And then she got a telegram that he was deceased while at POW. And so they're – I believe nobody's self-made. They're self-made within the circumstance they find themselves in which they had no control of picking. Sure.

Mom didn't pick to lose her husband. Absolutely. And we didn't pick for things that happened. Yeah. And so we ended up in San Jose, long story short. King Centrillo, without them, we were singing just right. There was no comedy. Tommy had an inkling in high school. He had this ability to get people to laugh and to listen. Well, yeah, that was inkling in high school. He had this ability to get people to laugh and to listen.

That was pretty funny in high school. Well, that would be, you know, when you're getting in trouble with the teacher, at any age, that means you're funny. You create chaos. That's right. It means that you're going to be a comedian or you're going to be a real societal problem. A real loser. Yeah, exactly.

Comedian or criminal. Exactly. Comedian or criminal. Or both. Yeah. Like the president. Yeah, exactly. Comedian or criminal. Exactly. Comedian or criminal. Or both. Yeah. Like the president. Yeah, exactly. At about 14 and 15 years old, if I was late for class, there was a front door and a back door. Instead of

sleeping in the back door and going to my, I'd go to the front door and apologize profusely to the teacher and to my classmate. I'm sorry, disturbing our learning process. And by that time, they're on the floor laughing. My ear by the teacher and also Mr. Hammer, who happened to be our vice president. Vice principal, yeah.

Vice principal, who always had the paddle. Did he actually pull your ear and pull you off? Yeah. In the middle of your show? I didn't know it was a show. He's killing. What are you doing? I'm killing him.

Yeah, see that? You got canceled early on. The other time I knew that I might have a career in show business was when I was at San Jose State. The head of something asked me if I would like to lead the card stunts because during the football game. But they were having problems because kids were throwing the cards. And they're 8 by 10 pieces of card. What are they? They don't know.

The new people don't know. They'd have colored cards. And you'd have a diagram, and they could count out, okay, trick thing number two. It would tell you when on a count to show your card to the people across the stadium. Okay. There's a game. I guess they don't do card stunts anymore.

Maybe they do. But it was thousands of people in the stands and stuff. With the cards. And I came out with a little hat like my brother has on. And I always play the victim. Yeah. And I say, okay, we want everybody to participate. And take your instruction sheets, a little piece of paper. And then I say, pass them over.

Okay, please work with me. It started feeling sad for me. Then I got them. I said, okay, the last stunt Then I got them and I said, okay, the last stunt, they got to put the card, take the instruction sheet

at the count of three with the, it looked like popcorn going on. Oh, you just throw it out. And no cards were thrown. People were hurt. People were getting hurt

with those. sharp corners. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Don't throw them, throw these and it looked like a snow blizzard. But it was kind of funny because I said, huh.

Yeah. And I played the victim. Yeah. I said, please, let's work together. Yeah. What the hell are you talking about? Well, that's a great timing. That's a great device.

I mean, even on that, like, I can't remember which bit it is where you talk about being in love and not wanting to be with anybody else, and you build it up and build it up, and you're like, you know, I'll fool around a little bit. What was her name? Betty Davis. Betty Davis. Oh, yeah. She was on the Johnny Carson show, and we were there.

And she came in after a set next to her. And I said, John, I just want to say to Mrs. Davis, I'm a huge fan of all your fans. You're an incredible actress, And I just don't, I just, did you mess around? She had her legs running up the air. She went and couldn't. Yeah. She said, not a great line, but it's where they land.

If you were a little bit older and I was a little bit younger, I'd sure mess around with you, Tommy. Is that what she said? She was gracious. Oh, yeah, she's great. They became friends, too. Was that before she was on your show or after? We had her on our show.

That's way before. Oh, really? Way before. You endeared yourself. Well, we're kind of endearing. I'll tell you what. That's for sure. I'll tell you what.

His victim was good. You know, like Woody Allen did a certain type of a victim. Right, right. People have their schtick. Shlub. Either you're really mean. He was a schlub. Yeah, he's a sexually repressed Jewish kid.

Right, but Tom played as sort of innocent, right? Yeah, but we were on the Tonight Show with Johnny, and Jackie Leonard had done his segment. Yeah. Jackie Leonard? Jackie Leonard. Yeah. You know, hi.

What are you going to do? Who does your nails your gardener yeah you know you know what aggressive comic and he's sitting there we come in i do our bit and and we sit down after our bit we sit on the couch and he started turning to tom and did a whole segment of putting my brother down yeah just the worst thing that's what he does yeah tomm And Tommy just took it. I had no, he gave me no space. And then finally, you remember what you said to him?

He had buried my brother and then Tommy looked at him and quite sincerely, I said, Jackie, your comedy would get better if your timing would improve

or something like that. Yeah. Your maturity would be better if you got a sense of timing. See, I forgot it too. You gave it a good beat though, right? something like that. Yeah. Your maturity would be better if you got a sense of timing. See, I forgot it too. You gave it a good beat though, right? I killed him. Yeah.

He killed him. And he went to his death every once in a while when it's not in his mind. Someone comes up to him. And it happens to us on our big bombs. Yeah. Which is bad. Hey, Jackie, I saw the time Tommy Smothers buried you on the Tonight Show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good. No, no, no. Good, good. So, well, okay, so the Kingston Trio, you're learning how to riff a little bit. You're repeating some funny lines. And what happens? Is that when the comedy becomes as important as the music? It's like leaking out tentative steps because we had no vision of where we were going to go with it.

Sure, sure. You know what I'm talking about. It grew. It just grew. It just started happening organically. Yes. And you were getting a, because your music chops are good, and you both have nice voices, but the laughs were feeling satisfying, right, and the dynamic.

People would come up sometime after a really good show, and they said, Victor Borger would never finish a song. Right. Great pianist, but he was funny. He was very funny. And why don't you finish a song? He said, well, on the way. You're just finding it.

And Dick and I are conversationalists. When we did our material, when it was at our best, we listened. Pretty soon, Dickie really listened good. And as I say, the straight man in a comedy team is the most powerful. The drummer. Sure. Especially with conversation.

Conversation. The best people that do what you do here on the airwaves and streaming, they're conversationalists, and they've learned a way of making it interesting or allowing you to make it interesting, too. And so most comedy teams were set up, release, set up, set up, joke, set up, joke. And you know there's nothing natural about that. Yeah.

And Tommy and I were conversational, and it grew that he would make up stuff, and I'm the practical pig. That's not true. Yeah. A lot of it's true. Well, no. There were no pumas in America. There was no chocolate. That's a chocolate on the street.

Yeah, there was. Why did they put it in the street? Well, they had a fence. They were conscious about safety. Right. How'd you fall in? Well, there's a little railing on top. I like to balance on that.

It would slowly grow yeah I had the pet I had everything mom liked me best right right so over the years I had every gift

he had nothing yeah he got my scooter after the wheels fell off right and I had a dog he had a crummy chicken well after two or three years

that chicken grew to 50 pounds killed my dog and so you let them grow and grow and grow and that just happened through improvising? Yes. The two of you sitting there?

And the audience was so important. Because their feedback. They tell you where the last one. Yeah, feedback. And to repeat something that killed one night? Yeah. And you lost it the next night? No, it was the setup.

It's where it was. Right. We never wrote anything down. It was all. It's all. Through repetition. Yeah. It started off with me introducing the songs.

Right. And I'd make something up. and then Dickie would say something. I don't know what to say. We'll write something down, do an introduction. He was very hesitant. And once he got into the process, slowly growing to it, that it became conversations, just saying, that's wrong. Yeah.

He'd say, that's wrong. And I'd say, you know what? Then it became a conversation, so he became this wonderful straight man You know what nice long bits really great. Yes. I didn't like him. We don't we didn't get along we Our tension is real the tension is real. Yeah, it's you have to have a certain amount of tension even now Yeah, well, we not like now. We're we're senior citizens Yeah, no, I give my good I give him a a puzzle on his iPad, and he leaves me alone. Yeah.

You know, if you ask me a question, when did you first get this idea of doing the stuff layered over a folk song? Yeah. And what I remember, and it may not be correct, but my memory is the song that we did first time on national television the jack parr tonight called the foxes the fox went out on chase one night it's a song about a fox that was hungry he had his little children and he had to go out and steal yeah folk songs yeah and one night at the purple onion we're singing the song we were a trio that

first year and so two guys didn't interact Tommy we tuned and stood yeah Tommy singing a song came to it came to a great big pen ducks and the geese were kept there in a couple of you gonna grease my chin before we leave the town no town I'm going quack quack quack quack yeah I just thought I'd screw it up yeah it got a huge laugh yeah so I said I said do it again I didn't know it's gonna get a laugh he says do it again do it again I says I said, do it again. I didn't know it was going to get a laugh. He says, do it again, do it again. I says, I can't do it again. He tried to do it again. You do it again. So I started doing it. And it started a litany of what happened outside of the song about a fox.

So when we had our big break, anybody who was anybody wanted to get on the Tonight Show with Jack Park. Only thing on the air at that hour. And so they said, what are you going to do? What song about it? They said, this is a camera, a walkthrough. Don't do any material. This is for camera.

Yeah. Don't worry about it. Yeah. So Tommy started explaining and they said, what the hell's going on here? If I do this, if I put it like a knife

cutting my throat, get off the stage, stop. Yeah. Do this, speed it up. Speed it up, do something.

The director. Yeah, the director. So Jack Parr's going to say, I'm going to look like crap. I've got to distance myself from these guys. So he set up a worse introduction in his mind to buoy us up. But you get him, I don't know, folk songs, I don't like folk singers. We're alive. He did everything and set us up.

Underplayed you. Yeah, and the last question it was going to really set him up. He said, hey boys, tell me, and we're out there in the home base. Yeah. He said, boys, what's the difference between folk singers and hillbilly singers? And Tommy without a beat said,

hillbillies sing higher. And the audience exploded. Yeah. We had won them. We couldn't pay a million dollars for that. And that night. And that was off the cuff? Totally.

Just to change subjects, Smothers Brothers, we love the Everly Brothers. Yeah. And we were approximately exactly the same age. Yeah. One day apart, Don and I and Phil and Dickie. And they were opening for us, and it was the Smothers Brothers and the Everly Brothers in Las Vegas. And after the second night of this week run, the road manager said, and I'm down tuning my guitar before the show, he said,

the boys are having a, they're not going on tonight. I said, what? I said, Phil's up in his room and Don's in the dressing room they're not talking they're not going to perform and I go geez

what the hell I said well tell them to pack up and get out because we'll have to that's it all of a sudden

they came on yeah so and they sang not even looking at each other. So I told Dick, he said, tomorrow night between shows, let's have dinner with them. And he didn't want to.

I said, we're brothers. They're brothers. Maybe we can talk about how we can get along. And so we sat down at dinner. And I said, I know you love each other. He said, we don't love each other. We don't like each other. And Phil started talking.

Then Dick started talking. Pretty soon, the two younger brothers were in total agreement. So we left fighting each other. And Dickie was hanging out with Phil and was hanging out with Don, the older brother. That was just the real truth about brothers. I was going to be the one. You're going to fix it and then everybody picks sides? The younger ones?

Yeah, we've had early, early, early on. Yeah. When we became the Smothers Brothers, that is what we are today, was in Aspen, Colorado in 1960. And the Limelighters, a big folk group, owned a club there and they brought us there. And it was the first time we'd ever been a duet. We had failed at the little club. What happened to the other guy? He fell in love and went to Australia with his girlfriend, whatever. us there and it was the first time we'd ever been a duet we had failed at the little uh what happened to that other guy he he fell in love and went to australia with his girlfriend whatever

yeah and uh we we had just done our little things at san jose state just right struggling what was that scene like who was like so you were part of the folk scene in san francisco not the comedy scene yeah we were we sort of were never. The real folks didn't like us. Because you were kind of making fun of them. Yeah, making fun of them. That's when they said, you're a satirist. I didn't even know what that was. But they did.

So because I was wondering about that, given the culture we live in now, is that as becoming these liberal voices in media and defining sort of that type of satire, that you were sort of taking shots at the most vulnerable liberals they were, these folk singers. So I always thought that, did they take it or did they? Well, they mostly liked it, but there was a couple of clubs

that wouldn't hire us because we weren't ethnic enough. You're not ethnic folk singers. But we didn't attack folks, and we attacked the songs. Okay, so there's a difference. Right. You get down to it.

There's very few ethnic folk singers. You've got Pete Seeger, the songs. Okay, so there's a difference, right. You get down to it. There's very few ethnic folks here. You've got Pete Seeger, the Weavers, these guys that are, that's their culture. Sure. And they were wonderful. They sang songs as they were sung in the mountains and all that. And these young kids were just shaving,

starting to shave. Heidi, Heidi, oh, a bounty would go. They were singing the music of the day and it was a great opportunity to not sing a love song. That's history and legend. But the folkies never got mad at you, never drew a line. But so at the Hungry Eye and at the Purple Onion, I played the Purple Onion when it reopened.

I think it might have been the original place. It's a tiny place. Yeah, yeah. And so who was around? I mean, were the Beatniks still around? Wait a minute. Who was starring? Well, yeah, like when you did your record, like who was across the street at the Hungry Eye? What were the beatniks still around wait a minute who was starring and well yeah like when you like when you did your record like who was across the street at the hungry guy what were the

what were the bills like okay lenny bruce oh yeah uh did you go see him yeah i pulled him water skiing in sausalito he did he was the palest white man i ever saw i said he looked like he he went to bed in a coffin you You took him water skiing? Yeah. On a boat? Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. So him and Mort Saul, Shelly Berman, Nichols and May, Professor Irwin Corey.

Irwin Corey. Of course, the Limelighters was the folk singing group. They were the Hungry Eye, some clubs in New York, and Chicago. They were the biggest, most active. Yeah, so you guys would go eat the Chinese food with all these guys sometimes and hang out? Sure. I'd go across the street to this Filipino place where you could get 35-cent pig's ear sandwich. And when you want a turkey sandwich, there's a leg, there's a whole turkey.

It was so much. And Broadway in the night at Enrico's Coffeehouse on Broadway which was a landmark for decades and decades. It was a glorious time. We didn't know we landed by circumstance and war at San Jose and to a place where they could fertilize

and give us a chance to grow as entertainers. Other comedians didn't consider us stand-up because we had a darn bass. Oh, because you had a musical bit.

I always thought we were stand-up because we did at least 50% talk. Oh, yeah. No, of course. Was Newhart around? Yeah, we could do

an hour and a half show and sing five songs. Yeah, but that was it. You were definitely stand-up. Was Newhart around at all? Oh, yeah. He starred around that time. Cosby was starring that time. Richard Pryor. And Newhart around at all? Oh, yeah. He started around that time. Cosby was starting that time.

Richard Pryor. And you went and saw all these guys. You were part of the – and when you watched – who were some of the guys? Like when you watch Lenny Bruce say – because, you know, he would talk a lot. Yeah. And it wasn't even that easy to understand all the time. But what started to inform your politics, you know, more than anything else? The times.

The times. The Times. Oh, because there was such attention. Dick Gregory was picked by one of the brightest of the comics of that day. Sure. And he chose the Civil Rights Movement to do it at that time in his life. And he sacrificed a lot of potential greatness in one area to be great in another. So there were people making choices. It was just the political thing. It was more of a social observation that the war in Vietnam. Right. So there are people making choices. It was just the political thing.

It was more of a social observation that the war in Vietnam was not. Well, yeah, and that came a little later. Yeah, that was the thing that got us fired from CBS. But it was, and now in hindsight, of course we were corrected. Right, yeah. And the criticism. But we used to get hate mail and stuff. Like it is today.

but we used to get hate mail and stuff like it is today it was already festering back there in the 60s between hippies and straight people right love doves and the hawks was the 60s word right you a dove or a hawk right so after aspen that put you on the map no that put us together as a comedy let's say that two years after we started at the Purple Onion, we got the Tonight Show. Right. However big miracle it was, that put us on the map. And then the record came? The record was before that. At the Hungry...

No, at the Purple Onion. But they don't sell because nobody knows you made a record. Okay, right, right. Until you're on national exposure. So once you did the Tonight Show, the record started selling, put you on the map. Oh, yeah. And that's when you got the TV deal, the record started selling, put you on the map. And that's when you got the TV deal for the first show?

We got Steve Allen shows. Steve Allen was really good with it. Yeah, he's good, right? That's what Tim Conway was on there. All of us. He loved comedians. He loved talent. He collected them and musicians. Steve liked musicians and comedians. So that seems to be the template

for your show as well, that idea. Yeah. Our first television show was a sitcom. Yeah, so you guys were around for five years before you got the sitcom deal? Well, we were January 61, we got The Tonight Show, and 1965 was our first sitcom. So you were just doing clubs, doing the dates. Selling records like crazy. Oh, yeah.

We had three gold albums, live albums. That's amazing. And we'd show up with no album. Right. And Mercury says, the contract says

you owe us two albums a year. Yeah. We signed anything because we were never going to be it, you know. Take the money. And then we made it up while people were paying

to see us. Sure. You have to. And then Tommy with Dave Carroll, people were paying to see us. Sure. You have to. And then Tommy with Dave Carroll, and he gets further in on that. They spent hours and hours trying to piece together not funny stuff to make it funny. Record for three days. Yeah. Three days, two shows a night, six shows.

Yeah. And we were ad-libbing as we were going along, and there's some magic time. Most of the time it's editing and trying to get the laughter across here and then we kind of learn it off. We learn our show from our album.

So you cut it on the album because you do all the editing put the funny stuff together and then you do the bit after that. You're like

they put these all together. All it takes is a germ. Some two comedians in Las Vegas came up to me after they'd seen our show. I know this one guy who was a member of a comedy team, and he said,

you know, I used to do this routine, probably good for you. I said, what is it? Oh, my partner would do something stupid. I said, why'd you do that? He said, the drummer told me to. He said, you do everything the drummer tells you to do? He says, yes, I do. He said, what, did you jump off a bridge if he told you to?

He goes, goes well not again and so I took that I took that little piece yeah and it became a runner right stick it in anything that he's screwing sure sure when I'm mad at him right who told you to do that that's awful yeah yeah yeah I always thought we were a pretty good comedy team no a great comedy team so who weren't a great coming but we were pretty good I think think, well, there's people we admire. I'll never stop admiring George Carlin. There isn't that many comedy teams.

You know, and you're one of the big ones. I'd say you're great. And there's, I mean, there's that footage of George Burns and Jack Benny doing you guys. If you're defined enough for those guys to do you guys, you're great.

I think when I look back, Nichols and May had conversations. When you see them, we were looking at our material today, trying to, or recently, looking at our best stuff. And that is conversation. It's not straight man comedian. Nichols and May, they're two people that were talking about something. They were mother and son or lovers or whatever they're two people that were talking about something. They were mother and son or lovers or whatever.

And we're two guys talking about something. And so that's how we're unique, I think. Well, yeah, but you're Dick and Tom. Yeah. You know,

and Nichols and May were, you know, they were doing different parts in a way. They're doing characters. Exactly. You are the character. We are the character.

So who reached out to do this sitcom? Aaron Spelling. Oh, early. Well, everybody's, managers and agents, they're all trying to promote your career. Yeah, they want to get you the job. It was the era of Dobie Gillis, Gilligan's Island, Genie. And so they did, it's a single camera, was an audience like the sitcom.

There's no audience. Yeah. So they took away our timing, our music, our instruments. And they were writing, right? Yeah. They said, okay, quiet on the set. Okay, five, four, three, two, action. Yeah.

Duh. Yeah, it was. And we'd have just a few lines. Asking you to see those. And you always tell me, I'd always break up the crew at the end of any take that wasn't going to be on. It was going to be on the floor because it didn't make any sense. So the performers were trying to be movie actors. Right.

And they cut our timing in the editing. So they didn't honor anything that you guys were good at. And they gave you lines and they expected you. And it must have felt terrible for Tommy. I still have a problem with the written material written material because yeah i don't know why that is you have specific timing who's going to be able it take you got to be somebody very sensitive to what you do to write properly for you well there's good there's good comedians who know how to do other people's lines yeah sure be written for but mostly stuff that was written for us was an imitation of us ah kind of in it didn't feel the improv actors that get

theirs their chops at San Francisco was the compass player San Francisco I was like a little compass was Chicago wasn't it the Second City Second City they became second yeah but they learned to act on their feet yeah yeah yeah and refine it so they could do anything you You write it, they could do it. Where was the committee from? Were they San Francisco? San Francisco. It might have been. That was San Francisco.

Yeah, that's true. Lee French, she played a hippie on our show. She was from that. Yeah, there was a lot of people in that. Was Peter Bonner's in the committee as well? I think so. Remember that guy? Yeah, sure I do.

We were on an island unto ourselves. We had no clue about the New York comics. Well, no, yeah, but no, but like that whole West Coast thing, I mean, everybody came through your show. But the point being, like, so you didn't mind the sitcom, but it bothered you. Oh, yeah. I didn't mind it. Looking back, even if it's not a great show, we had fans. The guy who wrote Dune flew from Hawaii to Vegas, Herbert, to see our show.

He liked the stupid sitcom. He's a brilliant man, so you never know. No, of course. Well, people liked you guys. But you have millions of people being aware of you. Right. So when you go in to do, how did the variety show start? What were the talks around that?

How did that come to pass? I mean, how did that deal happen? Well, that happened after we did our series, the sitcom series. They noticed the numbers were pretty darn good, in fact. It's called TVQ. And then they had this time spot on Sunday that was being just destroyed by Bonanza. Everything CBS put up against. What year is this?

1965. All right, so I'm two years old, and I'm not watching Bonanza, but everybody watched it. Everybody at that time. It was a big deal. Yeah. No one could beat it, right? No one could beat it.

So they said, Smothers Brothers, they have the actor. Put him in there. Okay, try it out. Yeah, let's try it. And we said, fine, we'll just go in and take it. You said the smartest thing. I didn't think like you did. You said, hey, they've failed six times against Bonanza.

The number one watched time all week. There's no recording. You're watching Bonanza, and you're not watching anything else, right? Yeah. CBS was last place that year. Yeah. Gary Moore, they had to do something. Oh, they tried the Gary Moore show.

Well, he'd been on forever. He had a great career. He was to tell the truth later, right? They moved him up against Bonanza for the Variety Show. Well, he also had a person on their show named Carol Burnett. So it was really a terrible spot for revenue for them. Didn't they offer it to Carol Burnett? No.

That's another story, but it's parallel. So the quickest thing to put on is a live show because the film shows are real expensive. Yeah. And it takes a long time. And the head of William Morris said to CBS, you've got to know something. You're a franchise, like a football team. Yeah. You've got a jersey.

They've got a station. Your players are getting old. The leaders of your variety stuff, you need some younger people out here. They test well. Give them 13 weeks, mid-season replacement. You can't lose anything. In the meantime, you could create something worthwhile and good.

That's the story. Consider us worthwhile. So that's how we got the idea. Hold the space. Right. So the agency said, you know, this is what you got to do. Like times are changing. Yeah. We got these guys.

And the real hanger on that whole thing was doing this sitcom, I had hardly any input. You had no input. Yeah. We hired actors in this thing and so by the time, when I said we get

this variety show, I said, I want creative control. Right. On him. They said, sure, you got it. Just go ahead.

And we're going to be gone right away. It didn't matter. So they didn't care. Right, right. Yeah, you can have it. Yeah, yeah. Well,

I use it like a hammer. Yeah. I mean, I had writers. If I didn't like them, I'd fire them. Yeah. And I had my friends on.

I discovered Pat Paulson and all these people that we worked with and stuff. And this was just out of, because like before this experience, so you guys only really dealt with each other and working with each other in the act. So what was it in your brain, like what were you seeing and what was going on in the world that made you so expansive in terms of like, I would just want to try everything? Well, what happens is when you're just working a little club, you try everything you can. There's not much.

Right. They give you a platform like a television show. All of a sudden, there's Horizons. Do anything. I have a good friend who's a folk singer who writes pretty. Bring him in. Who's that, Mason Williams? Mason.

Yeah. And I remember bringing this. He wrote the theme song yeah and I brought it to CBS and they said now we want something like thanks for the memories

right Bob Hope we need something like that yeah I said we're new on the scene this is a great yeah

dun dun dun dun dun yeah what else themes had to argue I said I've got creative control right okay we'll use that and just kept doing it so it just expanded and pretty soon your view is bigger because you're

in a bigger platform and it's never premeditated the situation kind of forces you to make decisions yeah moral decision okay this is a good point yeah the William Morris guy was the president of William Morris. He said, your franchise is too old. They hire us because they couldn't lose anything. You can't go worse than last place. Right. And our first show that we did was a hit without any content. It didn't matter.

They tuned in for a young host doing something against Bonanza. Yeah. They were ready for it. The second show, it didn't fall down. It was still good. There was all these people, all these, like, but it was very smart for you guys to decide, which I thought was genius is, and I'm not the only one, obviously, is that, you know, you integrated the old timers, right?

So you were bridging this gap. But you're talking down the line that's way down our show was just new and young and they bought it and then the times happened but who was on the first show it didn't really matter i don't know if you don't remember jim neighbors and some other people well he was mainstream yeah we had some mainstream people yeah always but there wasn't anything controversial. It was a variety show. Sure. In the strictest sense. But it was.

The combination of the two, having the younger people. The generation. That's what I mean. Is that like you guys had a respect and an understanding and a relationship with old show business, but you had ideas that were of the age. So by bringing in the people that were familiar to the audience, you were able to sort of, it's like a Trojan horse. You're able to sneak it in there.

We had iconic movie stars. We had rock and roll. Of course. You were able to sort, it's like a Trojan horse. You were able to sneak it in there. We had iconic movie stars. We had rock and roll. Lana Turner. Lana Turner and all that. But that's as the show, if we show our season, the three seasons, we would rather you would see

the second and third season. Sure. Because the first season was traditional and got us in the door. Right, but you were, yeah, you were establishing yourselves, but even in the first season,

you did some good rock and roll music. Oh, yeah, that part, but even in the first season you did some good rock and roll music oh yeah that part but yeah political stuff i know but the rock and roll music brought in that audience are you bringing in people that never watch tv right they were sort of like tv didn't speak to them maybe so you're right right the rock people wanted to do our show you know yeah because you would have a bond we were treated right oh yeah like what do you mean and then but part of part of that was not only were the types of things we had on, was Tommy made sure he hired nothing. I hate to say it. Hack, guys had been around for decades, writers.

He wouldn't hire them. The youngest writers that we respected and heard about. And CBS said, we want two old guys to babysit you guys. So that happened that way but then the times that we were about we were the only host that would be sensitive to the counterculture and what was changing but it wasn't political initially it was just cultural it was good stuff yeah yeah it's great so like when you started having but I think the rock band thing really changed everything that was really big and you it was it just out of your own sort of curiosity that you did this that you were you kind of like you knew that that that culturally you were

of a generation that was you know doing all kinds of exciting new things and you just went out and watched stuff or how did you book it pretty much like that but we didn't recognize that we were doing anything yeah you gotta remember the talent pool back there, if you wanted to promote your record, book, movie, whatever, television, there was no streaming. There were specials. Just radio, TV, and live performance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one of the things we insisted on,

we don't care how you recorded your hit, you got to do it live, whatever it is. By the way, Mason Williams, we made him a writer on the show and used his theme song. Yeah. And he was kind of a moral compass for me. Yeah. And he always was kind of nudging me. Yeah.

Hey, let's do this because it's the right thing to do. It's the ethical thing to do. Push it. And he was, I was very involved. Dickie was involved too, but his life was full. He was driving race cars, he was flying planes, Dickie was involved too, but his life was full. He was driving race cars, he was flying planes, whatever it was.

The worst thing it could have been was for me trying to take space equals importance in the creative process as my brother. There would be sides

taken up, there would be division. Yeah, yeah. So I said, okay, I'll learn my parts and I'll do my thing and I won't interfere

because Tommy has this natural talent with the guys and I had a wife and I'll do my thing and I won't interfere. Because Tommy has this natural talent with the guys. And I had a wife and I got three kids. And I did other life and I was always ready to know my part. Yeah, but you liked your life. Yeah. And he liked it.

I was a one-trick pony. I just did one thing. No, but you didn't though because you seemed, you were, you seemed to be the center, the guiding force and, but you were open to ideas and you had, you know,

you trusted talent. But that gets, that could bite you in the butt. Clearly. You go to bed with, there we were. Mason told Tommy,

he says, spend more time learning your frigging part. Oh yeah. People don't care. So he said, you're not spending enough time with your brother.

Not paying enough time working with Dick on, and you're so busy being involved in the direction of it or supporting this or that. But you were the producer, right? Well, semi. No. But I was pretty aggressive. Sort of. The shadow producer. No.

I wasn't the shadow. But Mason said, you're not spending enough time. And I see those early shows. Pretty soon it started. We used our own creative material. And then the writing started coming in. They were really good writers, but we were doing an impression. And it wasn't happening.

And when did it start getting touchy? When did it start getting, like, when did the problem start? Second season. Yeah, second season. The classic old world censorship. Yeah. We couldn't say the word sex education. You couldn't say anything.

I was surprised when I. We couldn't say that Pat Paulson said, and Ronald Reagan is a known heterosexual. Yeah. You know what they're going to think about him. Yeah. He's a known heterosexual. Yeah.

So pretty soon little things were and i just would talk to the press every time someone would do that oppressive thing then then it got to be political so but it was just like suggestive like it wasn't even the words it was just like if you were insinuating something i really couldn't believe when i when i did the research just how much you couldn't say like it was literally nothing yeah like even to suggest there was nothing profane on our show ever but even suggestive like it was it was and that must have so at a certain point because of the life you were living and the people you were talking to you realize this is crazy yeah and we gotta we gotta push it out a little bit or, it's not going to reflect reality. There's a certain, I look back in hindsight. Yeah. I was a stubborn son of a bitch.

And it wasn't particularly a moral or ethical thing. It was just, they'd say, you can't say that. Why not? Yeah. You've got creative control. Right. Boom, boom. But yeah, but I felt that when I was reading the book about it,

that there was, after a certain point, I could tell that you were just sort of like, fuck you. You know, maybe I'm in a self-help program, and they say nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Yeah, I'm in the same one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing by mistake. Tommy could have backed off, and we could have done the same thing. Yeah, Dad, I won't wreck the next car.

Just give me another car. I promise I'll go slow. Right. And you go just drive like you always had. And something else could have happened, but our getting fired and taken away at a time, maybe that was the right thing. How often can you go out and have people thank you for something you did 60 years ago? Right.

Well, I think the timing of his particular form of anti-authoritarian thinking, and it seems like it was something you had all your life. Yeah, he did. He did. But the thing is, is that culturally, ideologically, it was appropriate. And it fed the sort of your stance about the war and your stance about, you know, what should and shouldn't be said and about free speech. So your personality, though it may have been a personal pathology, fit perfectly with the times ideologically. The right skills for the right moment.

Exactly. ADD, dyslectic, everything, and plus there are little hearts. He did it. So we're at this process now. Yeah. We've been retired 12 years. And at the time, I was just burnt out. 51 years, that's enough.

Yeah? Yeah. And then it's just kind of, we all got there. I thought Tommy really was burnt out about 10 years before we retired. But he did it for me. He did it for other things. And he wasn't having fun. You know, we're all going to die, but do you want to die on a road?

You know, you want to die at home. And I don't mean in a bad sense. No, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that your line? He gave so much. His performances never, ever were less than 100%. He had great shows.

But if it's not fun and it's sucking you dry, maybe you've got to step back. Right. But like in the 60s, though, it seemed like, you know, I'm surprised you didn't get burned out earlier. I mean, you were producing. The way TV worked was much different. You guys had to get the main. Because the sensors were so on your ass, you had to get it in the can

and then send the tape to New York and then it had to be approved and like a never-ending process. And then you were also producing the Summer Slot, right? With Glen Campbell. Yeah, with Glen Campbell. I was pretty thin.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you had time to do anything. Well, I went racing. He went racing. I polished my car. He drove Le Mans. Wipe on, wipe off. And he's going crazy with the editing room.

And you're with the car. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I love supporting Tom. And he didn't ever do anything half-cocked without checking with me. And I sort of pressured him to one bad decision that I really regret, and that was taking the show we took

where Joe Hamilton was the producer. When we came back. Was that Carol Burnett's producer? Yeah, it was her husband and producer. This was after you were fired. Yeah. A couple years. And we could have a show back, but they couldn't trust us. We put on that three years of one of the most respected shows on television,

and they couldn't trust our taste. So they put Joe Hamilton's taste. They said, you've got to take this, boys. You've been fired. This is the most powerful thing that can do. We came back with Dine Up. It was a huge hit on ratings the first week and just dropped like we were going off a cliff. Because they saw that.

We didn't have the same stuff. They were writing sketch comedy and we're not sketch players. Right. It was a bad decision. Lost it. They took your edge away. But. They tried to break our spirit.

Yeah. But they didn't because, hey, here's what happened. Eventually, we said, Joe, this show's tanking. You should just get out. We'll let you go. Yeah. And so he left the show. Yeah.

And then Tommy and I don't know who you, the people you did around, the show's got a soul. We had songwriter, poet, singers. We had a theme on every show. They became things we were totally proud of. So it cost us. And I'm sorry I did that. But it turned out to put us in a different place. Yeah, we shouldn't have done that.

Well, I should have done it. Well, he admitted he screwed up. Sometimes you do the right – We all do make decisions. Sometimes you do the wrong thing and everybody thanks you for it and you had evil intent. He said, oh, it's nothing. I had no evil intent. But what led to – like did you feel like in the third season of the original show when you were, you know, when ultimately everything became a fight on that show about what you wanted to get on and pushing the envelope and making sure that the heart of the thing was, you know, against the Vietnam War, pro freedom of speech on any level. level and sort of managing that line between entertaining and irreverent.

But it became a full-on fight almost every show, correct? There's always just one little section here. The whole show isn't a problem. There was a diversion of focus because of that. There was one story where we had

Cher on. Yeah. I'm fighting this censorship battle, and the producer says, oh, we have a problem with Cher. I said, what's the problem there? Well, the censors want her to put bandages over her nipples because her nipples were showing. Through the dress?

Yeah, there was a bump there. Yeah. And I'm going, all i need is this one just kill her to put some goddamn bandages i have my hands are full already with business and i should have said just do the show with that and see what happened that would have been a great story so i my righteousness i i let it go i should have stood up for her that's one of your regrets that the nipple should have stood out yeah they wanted to i'm wearing a polo shirt we wear a polo shirt everybody guys have nipples they say your nipples are showing of course they

are well that if that's one regret that's not a horrible regret no but i i still look at it god we do the press would have been great that would have been that had been a good one it wouldn't be on us it would be on but so the censorship thing was that it seems that ultimately, though, I watched last night, I watched the show that was never aired, the one with Harry Belafonte and the montage from the 68 Democratic Party. They took out so much of that. Right, but the one, the unaired one, you can see it. I mean, I read about that sketch or about him singing against the Democratic Convention. We thought we had the freedom of speech. CBS had the right from the Constitution.

It was heavy stuff, though. It was heavy stuff, you know, and it packed a wall up, you know. And, I mean, that was the amazing thing about that show, and I think that was the – because, now, be honest with me. Did you resent Laugh-In's success? Oh, no. No, we loved it. Oh, you did?

We were tight friends with Slaughter and those guys. We loved it. The fact is – George would call me all the time. How did you get away with that? Oh, you did? We were tight friends with Slaughter and those guys. We loved it. The fact is- George would call me all the time. How'd you get away with that? Oh, yeah. But Dan Rowan took my place on the show we were fired for, supposedly. Yeah.

I was racing in the 12-hour races, Sebring, Florida. Yeah. And I left, and Dan Rowan was the guest straight man. He's a funny guy. Yeah. But so there was no competition? No. Oh, that's nice, we loved those guys.

And I love the fact that they could do those little short, short things. Didn't require. Yeah, but because of that, like, you know, I think that as funny as it was and as groundbreaking as it was, it didn't go as deep. I mean, you know, jokes. No, it didn't have time. Yeah, and jokes are jokes and that's fine. And sometimes they can make you think differently. didn't have time yeah and jokes are jokes and that's fine and sometimes they can make you think differently but like when you really when you look at that five what was it a 10 minute piece

with harry belafonte singing against that stuff i mean that's not it's it's something it's art it's it's more profound tell say what we were what was the stuff we were showing while they were oh it was the the protest there was news footage from chic. Right, the Democratic Convention. And the cops beating down. Yeah. And the song was Stop the Carnival. Yeah. Was it called? Yeah, Stop the Carnival.

Yeah, it was nothing inappropriate to show on television. It had been on television. Yeah, in separate, different contexts. But you know, the show was not, there was just small parts that were controversial. Right. The whole show was a variety show. Right.

It was very funny. We had some sweet stuff. But that was the balance. Right. The balance. But they were so threatened by you. But it seemed to almost consume you. Almost like you almost kind of, you went crazy, did you?

I didn't go crazy. Oh, good. But I was never really sane. That's why you have a brother. Yeah. Sometimes you step in and help. I always check with him. He'd say, Tom, you know what you're doing?

I said, absolutely. It's covered. I'm not making any legal mistakes. We influenced each other. He comes back and he said, we're fired. Remember, you know, I'm influenced by Tom. He was always my older brother, protector. He was a great brother.

And when I started racing cars, he started driving faster. I influenced his driving habits. I said, why are you driving faster? He says, I found out I'm genetically related to a race driver. I must be better than I thought. So when you got fired, you couldn't believe it, right? I couldn't believe it either. I was in New York coming back from Florida.

And some AP called me, or UPS, one of them called me at the hotel and said, hey, this Dick Smothers, what do you think about getting fired? I said, we didn't get fired. We just got picked up. And he says, no, you got fired. Because you did just get picked up. We got picked up for the, no, he says, you're fired. I said, well, I guess I have more free time.

That's all I care. I said, I was thinking of the things I could do. Thank you very much. But you didn't get fired over a particular event it was really a sort of no it was a particular event

it happened to be it was an Easter show it was the week that Eisenhower died yeah it was supposedly

inappropriate for Easter was the sermon on that show yeah the second sermon that was supposed to be on that show. The sermonette was on that show. With David Steinberg.

It was a made-up thing. But it didn't have something to do with not delivering the tape on time? Well, that was her... Excuse. That was her scam. Right. They were looking for some... Contractual reasons.

Yeah. There was nothing written. By the way, we didn't have a... As I understand, there was no stipulated contract. Right. They kept... It was nothing written. By the way, we didn't have a – as I understand, there was no stipulated contract. Right. It was moving around. But they had had enough. They didn't have a preview clause.

Right, right. But they'd had enough of you. They had enough of me. They hired a hitman. They hired a new president to come in. They hired a president. Yeah, Robert Wood, they brought a new president of CBS. He's going to handle the brothers.

Oh, and that was it? He wanted to have a meeting with me, so I went and had this meeting. He's probably, Tom, you know, there's other ways of dealing with the war and the different things. I said,

pretty soon I was screaming, they're burning babies! Yeah. It didn't go well. No. So Tom, and i looked back and i said i could have been cooler about this you know you could have you could have played but anyway so tommy did something and then and and they said they got they all made it they and the attorney said we got them we got them yeah like that they won the victory and they were after you a technicality of something but you guys were still the show was you were going out till like it's the first season 30 million and

you were still had like what 20 million people i don't know i don't know what the numbers are but the ratings were good they were we we were in the top 10 with bonanza sure beat them a couple times but i think we were in the ratings were sagging a bit right but just sagging but you were still in the game. So, you know, they just... We're still in the game. They just... And also, like, I guess because when you were fighting these fights with these censors locally, you know, in the L.A.,

in the West Coast offices, and then you just basically shut them out and wanted to go directly to New York, right? And then you just disrupted not only the culture, but the corporate structure in their eyes. There was a lot of... Chain of command was violated, right. There was some gamemanship going on.

We'd sometimes put out Mason, and we'd write some stuff we knew was really on the edge and a little beyond. Yeah. And we'd fight for it, and we'd... Yeah. Okay, and we knew we were going to take it out of there. Yeah. And we'd fight for it and we'd, okay. And we knew we were going to take it out of it.

Right, right. In exchange for something else. Right, to negotiate. Right, yeah, yeah. Bait and switch. Yeah, right. And that worked? Yeah, sometimes. Occasionally.

Yeah. So even though it wasn't the whole show, it was a weekly fight to get stuff with some meat in there that was provocative and, you know, not necessarily political, but just pushing the boundaries. There was that time that the whole country was changing. Yeah. It was a huge thing.

The 60s were major emotional and ethical and moral decisions being made all the time, and we were reflecting basically what was our age group at that time. Exactly. Right. And we were doing it at 9 o'clock family viewing time. Yeah. And they were very protective of that and they didn't have competition like they have now. I mean that they were the big dog. They were the big dog. Now they're the stubby little tail. Well all of all of network television is a stubby little tail. It's you know ultimately you

went to court with CBS. And the case was about breach of contract, right, basically, which you won. But the idea of the fight for freedom of speech. Never got resolved. Yeah. So how would you have handled that? What was the case that you wanted to make? I was, this is very important.

Yeah. Which is very important. You're representing a whole viewpoint in television and censorship. And we're going to sue all three networks. We got very broad. Yeah. So the only person we have to protect is the ACLU. Right.

We got an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union because most of the attorneys we knew in the business were clients. We don't want to do that. Our agents couldn't support us. People that work with the networks couldn't support our position. So we were out.

So we went to the ACLU. Anyway, it turned out okay, and we won poorly. The jury was stacked, unfortunately, with a woman on it. After further, they found out she was the wife of one of the security guards at CBS. And our attorney said, she'll probably bend over backwards to be fair, knowing that. She was the big holdout. Oh, really? Yeah.

Because her husband probably had personal experience. Yeah. We couldn't afford to retry the case. And did you think, in retrospect, that the Nixon administration was involved? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We were the prototype of the enemies list that they created. Yeah?

Yeah. Yeah. And there was, we got some, I forget where we got that thing about, I was being set up, drug busts. Oh, right. Yeah. And pretty soon there was a, Dan Taunus, Evan Dennis, go to places. I could tell.

Oh, they were trying to get you to. Oh, they were trying to get you. Just a little, yeah. They'd be careful all the time. Like, who is this guy who's offering me that? Well, that's what they do today. You have someone to have your car washed every two days, the car wash and stuff like that.

Oh, you felt like they were going to plant something? Oh, yeah. Oh, man. 20 years later, they did our reunion show. 20 years later. They made a mistake. Now, you can say anything you want. So, Tommy, one of the shows we did, we were invading Panama,

the enemy of the united states right panama and tommy dressed up as a bunny and started doing things about panama he says you can't say that oh really happened again they did well i ultimately you know whatever what you guys did did pave the way and it seems like you know if it weren't for you who the hell knows how long it would have taken for all in the family to happen, for anything to happen. You were at the front lines. Maybe we cracked the door open. Absolutely.

We opened the door a little bit. I think so. But here we are. And congratulations on your Emmy. It was a little late coming, but I love that, that they went out of their way to do that. You took your name off the nomination because you didn't want the other guys to get hurt, and they won.

And then they made up for it. How long ago? How many years later? I don't want to know when I'm going to get mine. I took my name off. Oh, great. You know, I'm going to be dead. I'm going to be like Charlie Chaplin.

Get a Lifetime Achievement Award when he doesn't know where he is. Well, at least it'll happen. You know, just hold on to faith. No, who cares? Yeah, I know. You know, we are so blessed in our career. It was accidental. We took advantage of it in the best way.

Couldn't have been any better. How's the rehearsals going now? Well, I'm 84. Yes. And Dickie's 83. Yeah. My sister's 80. So the three siblings are all in their 80s.

And what's trying some? Are you trying to talk? Yeah, I'm trying to talk. 80s. So the three siblings were all in their 80s. Are you trying to talk? Yeah, I'm trying to talk. We're working our bits right now. I can tell, yeah. The enthusiasm was like, you know, and I was thinking, I think we could get, if we're still funny,

and if we can still carry a tune just to, it's been 12 years since anybody even seen us and really we have some fans and they might say god these are really all these i wonder if they can do it yeah right yeah so i'd be interested too to see uh someone's 80s making a trying to make a comeback yeah well here's what we're. If you have a beautiful car and you park it in a barn for 20 years, you don't do anything to it. The supple

rubber insulation firms up, it cracks. Our vocal cords have done a little bit of that. We're going to come back as different. We could try to do the same, if we wanted to, do the same, if we wanted to, do the same show we did when we were 40 years old.

But two 85-year-old guys, it's not going to sound like that. I sing Sinatra in my head all the time, but nobody knows it. So are you guys running bits? We're going to have a few bits. We're going to have a lot of clips. Are you rehearsing? Are you rehearsing? Yeah.

A lot of clips. We'll do our clips. I enjoy. Oh, I see. You're going to curate a of clips. Are you rehearsing? Are you rehearsing? Yeah. A lot of clips. We'll do our clips. I enjoy. Oh, I see. You're going to curate a little bit. Yeah. And I enjoyed it. I was invited to a piano teacher, a guy that was teaching my daughter piano.

And I liked him a lot. And he said, would you want to show something? So I brought over a reel of stuff that Dickie and I did. I said, watch this. And there was about eight people there. And I said, this is really a good bit where Dickie kills. And a little subtlety. And everybody enjoyed it.

I enjoyed sharing it. When I get depressed, sometimes I'll go on YouTube and pick out something. I said, God, that was pretty good. But now we're 12 years retired in our 80s, and I'm having trouble hearing a little bit. I've got to fix that. When you have trouble hearing, you don't quite sing a tune like you used to.

Sure, right. So we have the problems. But we're working on this to see what will happen because we found down in Florida a comedy store that Dickie goes to a lot. We got on, did a question and answer thing. And then we went up to, we're in a museum now, the American. Broadcast?

Oh, the comedy museum. New York? Jamestown, New York. Yeah. And we did a sit down with. David Bianculli. Oh, yeah, the guy who wrote the book, yeah. Yeah, and also Fresh Air. Oh, yeah, the guy who wrote the book, yeah. Yeah, and also Fresh Air.

Oh, yeah. So we did this thing. Now we're, hey, listen, that could be interesting and a joy for, Dickie believes, really believes about the people that were fans of ours are now elderly also. Sure. Not as elderly as us.

Most of them dead now. Yeah. No, there are people, here also. Sure. Not as elderly as us. Most of them dead now. Yeah. No. Other people. Here's what happened. Our fans are dying like flies. Better get out there soon. Here's what happens sometimes when you can't speak like you used to.

Your brain is telling the whole story and your mouth is saying, and you know, you know, the thing. And you figure everybody heard you think. thing you know that and you figure everybody heard you think this has got to be in the bit yeah what you're doing right now this is the opening bit yeah pat paulson would do that double talk in the middle of something that sounded like words so anyways to get ready for it to go to the museum induction and it by the way it's it was picked as one of the top 10 things to see in the united states ever there's never been a museum dedicated to the most broadly practiced experience thing is

humor yeah yeah so so anyway so anyway we had to do a show presentation yeah he says i don't want to do that i don't want to do that we haven't done it a long time so we did a trial thing where david van couli yeah he would ask us the first question after we got out there. And then we would stimulate conversation on a few clips now at Chautauqua Institute, which is where we – it's really a big, wonderful place to work. That audience was there, about 3,000 people. Oh, wow. And I heard laughs that I never heard in 40 years.

It's like a thunderclap when they, off a clip, off a clip. And it's sort of like the rest of the story, how we're there. We will have a conversation with the audience, do some bits, and show some really wonderful video things where their memory won't read. The quality of the tape is so good, you don't remember exactly what you think you remember. And when they see the real thing, they're going to be there. You know, when you're having a good memory or a bad, your brain isn't remembering. It's there.

That's why resentments are stupid to carry. You can't. They flame up. They flame up again. Your it's there. That's why resentments are stupid to carry. Interesting. You can't, you can't, you can't. They flame up. They flame up again. Your brain is there. Because, and also like, you might not even be remembering it properly. Yeah, it's your version of history.

So anyway, we're going to, it's going to be an interesting show. Like for instance, when I saw Carol Burnett, I'm in a 90 minute or 75 minute show. I might've seen two or three clips. And she was Q&A the whole time, and I never missed her just doing that. Yeah. And the audience, you wanted more.

So they want more of what they remember or think they remember. It was a time in their lives where I'm going to get too many young people. We'll get some. But they want to remember that. Yeah. And they're going to see it. Oh, that's great. So, by the way, when we did 90 did 90 minute shows in our prime we don't need to do six songs right there's more talk than singing no no i think it's a great idea because you know and then people can get to know you where you're at now and your memories of more stuff yeah and then you have the

solid the footage well i i don't know if they're gonna like us where we are now yeah they're where they are but if they don't we've got the clips this is to like us where we are now. Yeah, they're where they are. But if they don't, we've got the clips. This is the way we were then. No, this is like a different kind of variety show. It's all based on you. Yeah, right. We will have tension in the show because if Tommy has that attitude,

they don't care. Shut up, you're talking too much. We will have conflict. And that's what they say. Oh, isn't that cute? They're pretending they're fighting. No, it's real. Sometimes we'll be at a restaurant and we'll be having a conversation. And people will come in.

You're so funny. Just like your act. Yeah, right. And it wasn't like, okay, we were just having a conversation. Yeah, but they know that that's because it's like a familiarity thing. Like I've been watching that Beatles thing, you know, the documentary. Oh, I hear that. It's fabulous.

But it's like I felt like I knew him my whole life. So I wasn't surprised when I got – it's almost like the first time we hung out together do you know like but i didn't you get a deeper understanding of course of course i did but but like i always like i felt like i've known him my whole life and i'm and the point is like you know when people come to you guys when you were such an important part of their lives they're gonna they feel like they know you when they see you and you're arguing and it's real. They're like, they just assume that they're... If we do what I think we can do, they won't judge us on that we don't sing as well as we did or anything.

They'll come back with a good feeling. They said, I didn't waste my time liking those guys or loving those guys. We don't want to disappoint them. That's right. But also, you defined for a lot of people a way of thinking like you know you guys were the the the portal into you know opening minds like that whole generational thing you did the the two generations like the fact that it was on for a whole families and you facilitated you know just as probably much more than you alienated people you facilitated conversations between generations and and of like was able to grow the culture.

I mean, I think most people have probably fond memories, if not inspirational memories of what you did. I feel so good when people make it a point to come up and hug me and thank me. And I don't feel worthy, but I will not diminish their yeah their feelings good I do I honor you do he'll do me will and he'll try to grab him stop it really thank you very much for the comment but we didn't deserve it I appreciate your misunderstanding of what we did yeah I'm not really me this mother's brothers passed away in a plane wreck in 1969. Well, I'm glad you're there to balance it out. Well, we'll try.

Yeah. That's all. But what happens when you do that, though, is you don't know how other people feel, you know what I mean? And you've got to let them have it. Dickie knows how they feel because they tell him and he believes them. Well, why would they go out of their way? The people that hate us or never heard

of us, they don't bother me exactly they bother me though well rightfully so because you deserve it do you feel like when you look back on it that any of uh that that both of you guys coming from you know the military background that you had made you know when when it everything did shift to anti-war. Do you feel like that made it deeper for you? I don't think so. No. No, but I do have certain points in my life. We were in Terre Haute doing a concert and got into a scuffle about program sales.

Yeah. A kid that was selling programs, he was taking... He wanted too much commission. Yeah, yeah. And we gave everything, 100% to Cancer Society. So anyway, it would become an argument. He called the police, and the police came out, and they said, we're going to take you.

Anyway, I got eight stitches in my head. The first time I'd ever... And I didn't believe when the blacks were saying there's some problems with the police. Escalation. They escalated everything. Oh, really? And so, and all of a sudden, I was like, wait a second. Now I start believing it.

From your own experience. And then the other one was when Eisenhower, our first time president, said, we didn't have a spy plane over there. Gary Powers? Francis Gary Powers? Oh, right. Yeah.

We don't do that sort of thing. They bring Gary Powers. Then, he's touching it. We don't do that sort of thing. They bring Gary Powers. Then we got him released. I was shocked again. So I was shocked with the violence of the police attack. And then my president lying. And that was it. We were born in 1937.

I was raised at a different time. So you believed all of it. I believed the truth. Yeah. But I thought it was the truth. Yeah. I think a guy who just did the epitomize getting that stuff out and he's funny and it's George Carlin.

Sure. He was a genius. Yeah. And you guys, he was on your show very early, right? Before he. Before he became. The guy. The philosopher.

Yeah. The guy. I mean, he's, if anything's worth seeing on YouTube is going to the George Carlin things and how they stand up and hold up. He was so much more important than some other brothers were really in all that sense. Well, he was a god of observation. He's in the museum right across the little hall. It's his stuff, and his daughter was there. Kelly? Yeah, and it has a trunk.

He wrote down everything. I know, yes. And it's accessible to you going to that. Oh, you can go look at it? You could pull stuff out of it. He wrote everything down. Digitally, digitally. Interesting. And the caribou net's just a few feet

the other side of this. I've got to go to this place. So it feels, hey, you won't regret it. It was really ranked as one of the top side of this. I've got to go to this place. You won't regret it. It was really ranked as one of the top places to visit. If you see it and you take someone with you, you will have a different show than the next guy.

It's not one ride fits all. You dictate what the algorithm is going to show you. Maybe I should try to do a show up there. It would be brilliant. Well, it was great talking to you guys. I hope you feel good. Well, there's the greatest. Dickie found a poem about the golden years.

I won't read it here. Why? Do you have it? I have it. Oh, that's great. It's the funniest. Damn, what is it? Yeah.

What is it? It's about reaching the golden years. Well, I'll just do the last two lines. The golden years have come and passed. The golden years can kiss my ass. There you go. And I won't tell you how you got there. You'll have to tune in later.

All right. Thanks, fellas. Thank you. There you go. The Smothers Brothers. That was something, man. And then we wandered. We all wandered into, there was a guy on the air doing real radio. There you go. The Smothers Brothers. That was something, man. And then we wandered.

We all wandered into, there was a guy on the air doing real radio. And we all wandered in and got on the mics there for a little while. And it was very funny. Tommy turns to me and goes, didn't we do this already? And walked out. Oh, show business. I could barely keep up with this riff. Barely. Thank you. ¶¶ Boomer lives.

Monkey. Lafonda. Cat angels everywhere.